It all depends on your point of view

A bit of a blast from the past for this post! I was asked about the importance of viewpoint the other day, and I was trying to think of something to illustrate that a slightly different viewpoint can make a big difference to the final shot. I thought of the Seattle Space Needle.

Consider the shot above. I visited the West Coast of the USA many years ago, and Seattle was one of the more photogenic cities on our itinerary. When we visited the Space Needle, photo opportunities were everywhere – but how was I going to make the best of them?

I took this shot by actually lying on the ground below the bright red sculpture, looking up. Yes, I got a few funny looks, not least from my girlfriend! But there was something about the juxtaposition of red, white and blue that I just had to explore.

The Space Needle Tower was deliberately skewed to aid the composition, and the deep blue polarised sky, the white of the tower and vibrant red of the sculpture combined to make a much more interesting shot than the usual ‘touristy’ shot that people take – Including me! Compare the shot above with the following two more conventional images that I also took (hey, I was new to this. Give me a break!):

I know which one grips me more…

So don’t be afraid to get down and view the world from a worms/child’s/pet’s eye view; or conversely, get a high viewpoint and look down on your subject. The effect is best with a wide angle lens (wider the better), and is particularly marked with a fish eye lens – very small changes in viewpoint can have massive changes in perspective with this type of lens.

Experiment with viewpoint – it can make a huge improvement to the impact of your pictures.

Comments

Interesting. I had never looked at it that way until now, but now that you mention it… It has a sort of “Hmmm. And what do we have here, then?” or even a “What are YOU lookin’ at, sunshine?” kinda vibe to it. Thats the great thing about ‘art’ – if my stuff can be called that – everybody sees something different when they look at it.